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Would compulsory voting work?

Readers weigh in on the merits and demerits of mandatory voting. (Graham Hughes / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Sat., Sept. 6, 2014

Re: It's time for mandatory voting laws, Insight Aug. 30

It's time for mandatory voting laws, Insight Aug. 30

Mandatory voting attempts to address only one symptom of Canada’s corrupt 12th century first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system under which most voters do not cast a ballot for a winning candidate. Mandatory voting will not correct this, but merely result in more votes which do not count to elect anyone. We will still have false majority governments that hold 100 per cent control over the House of Commons with much less than 50 per cent of the popular vote.

To fix our broken democratic system, we must go back to basics and change how we elect our MPs. We must modernize our electoral system to ensure representation that is in close proportion to the actual votes cast. Proportional representation (PR) shifts the balance of power back toward the people and away from political parties. It’s like flipping a switch that shines the light on us.

Fraudulent robocalls to deter voting would have no impact under a proportional electoral system because votes cast matter more than the arbitrary boundaries of ridings. Each enlarged riding would have multiple MPs.

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When voters believe that their votes really matter, they will naturally vote in larger numbers, without being coerced into doing so. This is evident in the 80 plus countries that have successfully implemented an electoral system which achieves some level of proportionality.

At least ten authoritative public studies have been undertaken in Canada on electoral reform, including the comprehensive 2004 Law Commission of Canada Report on Electoral Reform, commissioned by the Liberal Party of Canada. Each study recommended that Canada’s FPTP electoral system be replaced by one providing equal effective votes for citizens and proportional representation in the House of Commons.

The neoliberal fiefdoms of the U.K., U.S. and Canada still use FPTP because they can manipulate it to retain control over governance. Mandatory voting will divert our attention away from implementing an effective solution to Canada’s democratic deficit. Canadians must not let themselves be led astray.

P. E. McGrail, Brampton

Why does Susan Delacourt resort to mandatory voting to increase voters’ participation when a perfectly democratic and rational approach would provide a valid reason for people to vote?

Proportional representation would make every vote count, decrease the polarization of Parliament, reduce the frequency (and costs) of elections and the need for by-elections. Canada would then join the majority of democracies in the world.

In a multiparty, pluralistic society, FPTP is a bankrupt system that most often silences the voice of the majority of the electorate. Vested interest are the reasons for Canada sticking with it.

It is time for the media to support rational and well informed demands to change the present system at all levels of our government.

Bruna Nota, Toronto

It’s interesting that Australia has mandatory voting laws. They also have strict gun laws and variants of proportional representation and preferential voting systems.

We know how the Canadian gun registry turned out. Many people believe that our poor voter turnout is a reflection of the dissatisfaction with our FTPT voting system.

Since Canadians are unable to tackle our outdated voting system, I think having mandatory voting laws is unrealistic. Instead we could have a low-cost incentive for voters to turn out.

How about a coupon book handed out to all voters, with some free items and savings for products and services Canadians use? Huge savings at fast-food and coffee national chains, and huge discounts for purchases at Canadian Tire, Walmart, Home Depot, etc.

Let the retailers contribute, along with government financial support to make this a sought after coupon book. It would be an inexpensive and fairly uncontroversial effort to see if we can turn around the continuing drop in voter turnout.

Bob Spies, Port Perry

I would only support mandatory voting after the introduction of meaningful voting by way of proportional representation, so that nearly every vote cast goes toward electing an MP, and on condition that the ballot included the choice of “none of the above” so the truly undecided would not be penalized. Only then would it be reasonable to impose a fine, which should be sufficient to pay for its collection.

Mark Hambridge, Calgary

After the Titanic struck its iceberg the crew might have been forgiven for making a fuss about the arrangement of deck chairs, but only because we suspect they knew there was nothing to be done to keep the ship from sinking. Thankfully the demise of Canadian representative democracy is less certain.

However, Canadians perennially endure proposals to “fix” our electoral politics with schemes that feel like deck furniture renos, including the ever-popular Internet voting, proportional representation and mandatory voting. These sorts of proposals are simply remedial window dressing. What Canadians need, first and foremost, is a vote that actually works for them and for our democracy.

Instead of allowing ourselves to be diverted with incidentals, let’s focus on implementing an electoral system that really listens to Canadian voters and creates representation true to the meaning and spirit of the word “representative.” Our ballots must capture the full measure of diversity in our political thought — non-partisan as well as partisan — and be counted in such a way that that diverse voice is preserved (represented) in each parliament.

These parliaments and their members must also be electorally legitimate, embodying each citizen’s right to equal legislative power through MPs who individually possess secure and electorally faithful mandates to speak and vote on our behalf according to their own best lights – the real basis for their election to office – rather than the colour of their lawn signs.

Let’s do that and then entertain proposals for secondary considerations such as mandatory voting. The need for such embellishments will be much less pressing after the citizenry are empowered to truly participate in our democracy. We will wonder why such a fuss was made in the first place!

Mark Henschel, Toronto

You can get more results with honey than with vinegar. Forcing people to vote, and fining them for not doing so, is appealing to many in society and government. But it will not work.

Libertarians will argue that being forced into anything smacks of a “police state” mentality and is morally wrong. Why not use honey?

Offer a lottery ticket with every ballot. If you object to gambling, give your ticket to charity and “pay it forward.” Make this a positive experience and celebrate the right to vote by sweetening the pot.

Marion Bartlett, Brampton

If it’s true that “four of every ten Canadians” chose not to vote in the last federal election then it would be a great mistake to compel such uninterested people to cast a ballot. Do we really want to count the votes of those who are forced (by law) to vote and probably represent the lazy, uneducated and could-care-less class of citizens?

The results of such mandatory legislation would certainly have serious, unintended consequences.

George Dunbar, Toronto

I would go even further by taking away all voting rights for political elections at any level whatsoever for the next election. People who don’t realize that voting is a responsibility and privilege that many in the world are willing to die for, should have all their rights taken. It is unthinkable that almost half the population doesn’t give a damn who governs and what they do.

However, the minute you take those voting rights away, they will become valuable and, in the ensuing battles, non-voters may become better informed. They may realize that government decisions at any level eventually affect their own daily lives one way or another. Susan Delacourt is right: a wake-up call is desperately needed!

Shirley Bush, Toronto

I believe we need to have a test before anyone can vote. Uneducated voters have recently voted in and Stephen Harper. And almost beyond belief, Ford is in the race to be re-elected despite criminal activity, substance abuse problems, lies and overall buffoonery.

Also, forced voting basically goes against the idea of democracy. Democracy allows freedom, so freedom to decline from voting is an inherited right.

We would be better off as a society if only 25 per cent of educated, knowledgeable people voted. If a potential voter cannot name the three main political parties or two of the candidates running in their riding, possibly they should not be voting.

As politicians realize the voters today are becoming less and less knowledgeable about the issues, people like Rob Ford can use two simple phrases to win elections. To be honest, a smart politician today says next to nothing because that means their opponents have nothing they can make stick to them.

For these reasons, I would be in favour of forced testing for voters, not mandatory voting.

Gary Brigden, Toronto

We would all like to see more voter participation in our democratic process, but compulsory voting is the wrong way to do it. It would rapidly turn into the “Gong Show.”

Some would vote Conservative because blue is their favourite colour; some would vote NDP because they liked Jack Layton; some would vote Liberal because their parents or grandparents used to vote that way.

I’m not saying their wrong, but that is not the way to elect a government. It actually does harm because their vote tends to nullify the vote of another person who carefully considered the platforms of the various parties and cast his or her vote who they think would do the best job.

So how do we get more people to vote? The political parties themselves are mainly the reason. Don’t make promises you know you can’t do just to try and get more votes. Don’t spend all your time and money on saying how bad the other parties are. Don’t bother telling us what you wouldn’t do, tell us what you would do.

If our political parties started acting more like adults and not like children, we might become more engaged.

Larry Prout, Peterborough

Institute a properly representative electoral system and make lobbying a criminal offence and there would be no need to make voting mandatory. We have a governing party that was rejected by 60 per cent of the participating electorate, myself included.

The term “lobbying,” coined by Ulysses S. Grant, means the buying and selling of influence; a euphemism for corruption. As it is, voting makes me sad but the idea of being forced to participate in this tawdry charade is truly repugnant.

John MacMurchy, Toronto

Susan Delacourt is wrong on mandatory voting. Some people have absolutely no interest in politics; others form political opinions on the shallowest of facts; and still others are very badly informed.

To give one example, an educated woman I know recently told me, “I don’t vote because all politicians are crooks.” Honestly, I would object strongly if she were required to vote and her vote held equal weight to mine.

If we have a problem with low voter turnout, as Delacourt suggests, let’s try to get to the bottom of the question of why people are not motivated enough to vote. Just requiring people to vote is not a helpful solution to improved civic involvement.

Ivan Brown, Toronto

Susan Delacourt’s concern is justified, but her solution is wrong. We have a lot of other ways to address low voter turn-out before making it a criminal act not to vote.

One, which is incredibly obvious and a no-brainer: adopt a voting system in which every vote counts, so everyone actually has a reason to vote.

Two: ramp up civic education and engagement opportunities. We could have voter-designed and directed leaders’ debates in a lot more regions on a lot more key issues. Voters could pick the issues, submit the questions, with real-time online voter reactions during debates. We could lower the voting age so high school students are introduced to real-life democratic engagement and voting through civics classes. And so on.

Mandatory voting at this point is just covering up the problem, not addressing the root causes.

Larry Gordon, Toronto

Ms Delacourt’s suggestion that voters may have a damages case in being tricked into breaking a compulsory voting law is the best argument for compulsory voting I have heard.

I am otherwise not in favour of compulsory voting as a considered abstention should be a valid stand. However, in the context of recent electoral shenanigans, that is a very good point.

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